The Taliban Always Overreach

IMAGINE a world where 9/11 did not happen. In such a scenario, the Taliban would probably have all of Afghanistan by the jugular, having overrun the country and defeated the Northern Alliance years ago.

Having achieved total victory, it is highly unlikely that Mullah Omar and his followers would take their orders from their Pakistani handlers. As it is, when the whole world tried to prevent the tragic destruction of the giant Buddha statues at Bamiyan, nobody — including Gen Musharraf and the ISI — could prevail upon the mediaeval rulers next door to halt this wicked act.

In fact, it was this single stroke of vicious vandalism that opened the world’s eyes to the reality of the Taliban mindset. Earlier, they had been just another benighted mob of holy warriors persecuting their own people; now they were viewed with more than distaste. This revulsion ensured that when they were kicked out of Kabul by the Northern Alliance supported by American Special Forces, few tears were shed.

Luckily for the rest of us, neither the leaders of Al Qaeda nor the Taliban appear to have studied military history or psychology. While the former numbers engineers and doctors among its ranks, it does not seem to have recruited social scientists. Over the centuries, a vast number of treatises on the theory and practice of asymmetrical warfare have been written. From Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, to T.E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom, many theorists and military leaders have dwelt upon the lessons weaker forces have learned about fighting and defeating larger armies.

One major lesson is that the commander of the smaller force does not deliberately alienate the population whose support is crucial to success. The masses are ‘the sea guerrillas swim in’. Apart from providing recruits, ordinary people shelter and feed the insurgents. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, jihadi groups have become arrogant through their success, and now terrorise locals into submission.